Indoor Air Quality. We don’t think about it that often, but the level of quality air inside our own homes can have a dramatic impact on our daily lives. For example did you know that we spend 90% of our time indoors? That’s 7,884 hours, 473,040 minutes, and 28,382,400 seconds? That means that a majority of us spend most of our daily lives in an environment breathing air from an indoor environment, but is the that same indoor air that we inhale good for our health?
What Causes Indoor Air Pollution?
Indoors air pollution is caused by an accumulation of contaminants from various sources inside the living environment that contain some form of allergens or pollutants. Does your home have an odd smell, contain inadequate air ventilation, contain mold, or is it dusty? Than more then likely your living in a toxic environment that could potentially harm both you and your children’s health. Contaminants such as combustible products, smoke, pesticides, new building materials, and volatile organic compounds are some of the factors that contribute to poor indoor air pollution.
Poor air quality is strongly linked to health conditions such as asthma, headaches, eye irritation, and sinus congestion. An estimated 15% of American homeowners are allergic to their own homes, and 40% of our children develop a respiratory infection by the time their a year old.
That’s pretty scary information that might make you seriously reconsider the living environment that surrounds you. So what causes poor indoor air quality? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) indoor is more harmful to your health than outdoor air. Pollutants such as mold, dust, and fungi can leave you feeling congested and tired. If you’re an extremely busy person with a busy life this isn’t something you want to hear because your daily lives can be severely altered if your health is drastically impacted. So what can you do to address the problem?
How to Improve Your Homes Indoor Air Quality
Keeping your floors clean & fresh, making your home a smoke free environment, and testing for radon are good ways to start making changes around the home, but they don’t completely eliminate pollutants, allergens, and dust from accumulating around the home. While these are simple solutions you can only take cleaning your floors so often before you get tired of repeating the same process over and over again and pretty soon you stop caring and you’re back to square one because you’re tired of fighting the good fight.
Well! Let’s consider what your alternative solutions are. First you could hire someone to clean your home but that can get quite expensive over the course of time. Your second option includes investing in a dehumidifier to help reduce humidity, mold, and moisture throughout the home, but then you have to change the dehumidifiers filter every few months and while this provides a relatively inexpensive quick fix it doesn’t necessarily provide a complete solution to your existing problem. A third and more reasonable option would be to consider upgrading your homes insulation by investing in an air barrier system similar to spray foam insulation.
While you’re probably hesitant to consider upgrading to spray foam insulation because the immediate cost might seem expensive to you the actual long term cost savings, reduced energy bills, and a healthier living environment will help you to maximize your long term return on investment.
Spray foam acts as an insulation and air barrier system that helps keep allergens and pollutants such as dust, radon, carbon monoxide, pollen, mold, and moisture out of your home. By air sealing and eliminating air leakage with spray foam insulation you can minimize infiltration of outdoor allergens and pollutants and help improve the quality indoor air throughout your home.